


Sleep Study

by AxeMeAboutAxinomancy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dreams, First Time, M/M, Minor Violence, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-23 01:41:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy/pseuds/AxeMeAboutAxinomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock watches John sleep, then gets a surprise when he goes to wake him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Observation

He's _sleeping_ again.  
  
Sherlock hates to sleep. There is nothing more boring than inactivity. But when he must oblige his body in this unreasonable demand, he does not succumb to it in public. The living room is _public_.  
  
John is in his chair, head leaned back, eyes shut, breathing deeply and regularly; the paper is still in his hands, but down in his lap. Stage 3 sleep, slow-wave. He'll be dreaming soon.  
  
Sherlock glances up at the kitchen table and the experiment underway in the Liebig condenser. Hours to go before anything will be interesting there.  
  
His eyes flick back to John. With his eyes closed John's face is a completely different place than with them open, and it's not as though Sherlock hasn't seen it, but it's been in quick flashes -- about .4 seconds at a time when he blinks, and statistically some of those times Sherlock has been blinking too. Some overlap of course, Sherlock blinks a little more quickly, say .3s. ...Anyway he's seen it. Now, he can just stare at his leisure without occasioning queries or scolding or, worst (with John), dithering embarrassment. Since the earliest days Sherlock can remember, no one has ever liked his answer to _What are you looking at._ But John has that extra level of anxiety about sex at every possible inappropriate moment.  
  
There he goes, REM now, maybe he's even dreaming about it. Under his closed lids John's eyes dart around faster than they ever move when he is awake.  
  
Dreams are such a bore. A waste of time more pointless than watching television. But even _his_ brain won't work right without REM sleep, no matter what he tries (and Sherlock has tried.) It's a design fault. Dreams fool you into thinking you're on a case, and no matter what you try, what dazzling connections you make, what excruciatingly long chases you seem to keep finding yourself on, the rules keep changing and Moriarty is always getting away. Just like in real life, come to that.  
  
Admittedly John's dreams don't seem to bore _him_ very much. Some of them must be about the war. Sherlock has heard him shouting names he doesn't know in a voice hoarse with terror, heard him gasping awake upstairs more than once. He doesn't tend to do this, however, when falling asleep in the chair. The position? Or the setting?  
  
He's never particularly cared to know what anyone else dreams about, since dreams are so boring and people are so boring, but John isn't boring. What _is_ he dreaming about? It's irritating to be so completely left out of what John is doing.  
  
How could one find out? Subjective experience, of course, at best, but hypnosis...? Could he hypnotise John without John ever realising it? Tricky. And... risky. The subject of _experiments_ is a sore one. Better to hold on to that idea for an emergency.  
  
He could try waiting till just near the end of this REM cycle and then wake John up suddenly and ask him (in a big, startling, shouty voice) what he was dreaming about. But John would be annoyed and he might not answer. He might not answer anyway, depending on what it was. Or he might lie. And he wakes up quickly, another soldier thing.  
  
John turns his head slightly to the right, sighing, eyes darting behind lids. His eyelashes look very pale against his cheeks. It's light, showing through them. The number of his eyelashes is probably not data strictly _needed_ in the Mind Palace, but Sherlock puts it there anyway. John stretches his feet, toes flexing slightly against the carpet. It is impossible not to think of a dog dreaming of chasing rabbits.  
  
 _People do get so sentimental about their pets_ , Moriarty drawled. _And so touchingly loyal! -_  
  
This turn of thought is unwelcome, but now he is in it. There had never been an opportunity to answer that remark, the happening of things had accelerated suddenly.  
  
John's not a pet. Entirely setting aside the obvious argument (the first John would think to make) that he's human; no one questioned that. He's not a _pet_ , because you _pet_ your pets, don't you, that's why they're called that, and he doesn't do that. Jim Moriarty had been insinuating two things simultaneously, one for John's benefit and one for Sherlock's. John was meant to hear an insult likening him to a blond terrier, and Sherlock was meant to hear something else.  
  
Mycroft said 'loyal', too, in a detached tone that showed clearly how envious he was, one day when John had gone out. But he followed that with a remark about John going without 'feminine companionship' (what a prig Mycroft has always been!) for Sherlock's benefit, and Sherlock had said -  
  
John mutters something in his sleep and turns his head the other way, offering another view of his sleeping face. Sherlock's thoughts pause for several long seconds while he looks. It really is something of a luxury to stare for so long unimpeded.  
  
Anyway:  
  
Sherlock had said, "No he doesn't, he's out with a girl now," and Mycroft said, "She's cutting him loose right now, because of the things _you've_ done to make sure that she would. Please try not to be any more obvious than you can help."  
  
He didn't talk to Mycroft for weeks after that, because of course Mycroft had been right. John came home grouchy and quiet and never mentioned that girl again.  
  
Well. They just get in the way, don't they. They take John's time and attention. John actually wastes the effort on attempts at poetry in his emails to them. It is revolting.  
  
The poetry itself is not actually all that bad, as such things go, but the waste of time is _unacceptable_.  
  
The problem is sex, of course, really; the time wasted is in pursuit of it. John actually prefers romance to easier offers. He needs so much to _care_ about people, and even just to scratch an itch, he doesn't want someone he doesn't feel for, and this results in a colossal shocking expenditure of time while he woos this one or that one in the effort to connect. But since Sherlock is, of course, more important, _and always will be_ , the girlfriends always get angry and go away, leaving the two of them alone again, the way Sherlock likes it.  
  
Driving them off _is_ easy, and entertaining. Disproportionately entertaining, given how very easy it is.  
  
But.  
  
It doesn't make John happy.  
  
Sherlock presses his palms together.  
  
If John _were_ a pet - just for the sake of argument - because of course he's not: no petting, _not_ a pet - but if he were, could you say he was... well cared for? He keeps seeking a mate, so doesn't he _need_ one? To be happy?  
  
This isn't his area. He doesn't really understand it. Sherlock just knows what he observes, which is everything observable. But he can't see into John's dreams.  
  
"You're doing it again," John says, clearly, but with his eyes closed.  
  
Is he talking in his sleep? "What?"  
  
"Staring. You're like a _cat_ , staring me awake, stop it."  
  
But he hasn't even opened his eyes.  
  
"How do you know I'm staring when your eyes are closed?"  
  
John sighs and opens his eyes. "Like I said. It's like a cat staring at you. You can just feel it."  
  
"I've never had a cat."  
  
"No, you don't need one. A cat would nick your act."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Lazy, fastidious, contrary, daft. And _starey_."  
  
Sherlock's only answer is a noisy sigh.  
  
"Just because you don't want sleep doesn't mean you get to keep me from sleeping."  
  
This is actually unfair of John. "That's not what I was doing."  
  
John just looks at him steadily, jaw set. He's so grumpy. Not so well cared for, in fact. Sherlock really hadn't known just looking at John would wake him. He's never said so before, but today he says 'again'. How many times...?  
  
"What were you doing then?"  
  
"Watching you sleep. What were you dreaming about?" asks Sherlock.  
  
John looks away. "None of your business."  
  
Sherlock gets up and walks past John into the kitchen to turn his stare on the Liebig condenser, though it's still not interesting in there yet.  
  
John might just as well have said, _Just because you don't want sex doesn't mean you get to keep me from having any._  
  
From behind him John asks, voice still weary, "Anything in?" But he should know there isn't, if he hasn't done the shopping: Sherlock never does. Why would he? he eats so rarely. John is the one with the appetite. - _Appetites_.  
  
John is still waiting for an answer. "No." The fridge doesn't have room for food right now, anyway. Sherlock had to break two of the arms to get them in there as it was.  
  
The sigh sounds like the type where John's eyes are closed in weariness.  
  
He might go back to sleep again, but if he's hungry now then he'll wake even grumpier the next time. Sherlock has observed this effect. Blood sugar, apparently.  
  
"I'll get takeaway," he hears himself saying, without realising he was going to.  
  
John snorts in disbelief. He has, in fact, heard this before, when Sherlock didn't actually mean it. But he does this time. If John were more observant he would be able to tell the difference.  
  
"Really. What'll you have? Ma po tofu?" The Chinese at the end of the road is entirely acceptable. Their soup is nice. Sherlock might even have a bit of soup. "Dragon broccoli?"  
  
"Curry."  
  
But... the Indian place is six streets further away and they won't deliver to the flat anymore, not since that last time. Nor to Mrs Hudson. He's tried that already.  
  
"Currryyy," John says again, in much the the way a zombie might ask for brains.  
  
Sherlock sighs, noisily, and gets his coat.  
  
He calls on the way to put the order in, but they recognise the number and won't pick it up. So he has to walk all seven streets, place the order and wait while being glared at - _balefully_ \- and then carry the spice-fragrant bags back to Baker Street.  
  
And when he gets back to the flat, John is asleep again.  
  
He's moved, though. No longer in his chair, he's stretched out on the sofa.  
  
Sherlock puts the bags down on the mostly free half of the kitchen table and frowns at John. He can't put the food away for later so John must wake up and eat now.  
  
"John," and he puts his hand on John's shoulder to shake him awake.  
  
Unexpected result.  
  
John _bursts_ awake - teeth bared - whites showing all round his eyes - and lunges at Sherlock at such speed it's as though there were a jump cut in the film of reality.  
  
Even as he's being hit Sherlock decides that yes, position _is_ a deciding factor in what John dreams about, not setting.  
  
Then John's hands are on his throat and he has to fight, and they go down on the floor, strangely silent except for the sounds their bodies make hitting each other and the floor and the coffee table.  
  
John is hurting him. John is not waking up to what he is doing. John might even kill Sherlock before he wakes up completely. Sherlock processes these things as calmly as possible but his brain is already shrieking for oxygen. The word **dyspnoea** hangs in lightning-white before his blackening vision. Fighting back isn't working, it's just keeping John locked in whatever his dream is, strangling whoever his dream is about.  
  
Instead of trying again to push away, with his last effort Sherlock pulls him closer. Arms around John's back. Clasping him close. _If you kill me, then this is goodbye._  
  
But it works.  
  
John gasps, and recoils, and the crushing grip on Sherlock's throat is gone all at once.  
  
Sherlock's arms fall away from John and his head rocks back to thump on the floor, and then he's unconscious.


	2. Reaction

_Christ Jesus._  
  
John doesn't know what happened, what exactly happened, but he can figure it out. He woke up badly - very badly - the worst ever. In his dream it was Jim Moriarty trying to touch him, trying to get on top of him, voice purring all the things he'd said in John's ear in the changing room by the pool. And John was killing him, _killing_ that mad bastard, choking the life out of him. Putting a _stop_ to him.  
  
But then suddenly it was Sherlock. _Sherlock_ , holding him close. While John strangled him, locked his hands around that long white throat and -  
  
 _What the fuck!_  
  
Now Sherlock is lying there on the floor beside the upturned coffee table, pale and still. John drops down to his knees on the floor beside him and feels for the carotid pulse before he registers that Sherlock is breathing, if shallowly. Sherlock is still alive.  
  
John trembles with adrenaline, eyes peeled wide, shaking. Tears. _Oh Christ. I almost killed you._  
  
Sherlock's eyes pop open, and he looks at the ceiling, then over at John.  
  
"I got the curry," he says, hoarsely.  
  
John tries to say something, but all that comes out is an unintelligible sound, and then Sherlock is coughing anyway. John pulls at him to sit up, and though the guilt throbbing in his chest makes him feel like he should get away and stay away, Sherlock apparently has no such feelings. Once he gets his breath back Sherlock climbs to his feet and goes back to his experiment in the kitchen as though nothing whatsoever has happened.  
  
John gets up from the floor, then collapses back onto the sofa. His head is spinning. He lets it hang down between his knees. Cold sweat on his forehead. Almost killed him. Almost really _killed_ him.  
  
"You should eat," Sherlock says, his voice still abraded with the imprint of John's hands. "There's no room in the fridge for the food."  
  
"And why is _that_ ," John starts to say, automatically, but he can't go on. He was going to say something like _because you've got half of Bart's corpses in there?_ , but the thought of corpses is not funny. And he doesn't feel hungry anymore.  
  
"Problem? You sent me out for curry. If you want something else, _you_ can call or go get it. But there's no room for that in the fridge either." His voice seems to be getting better with use. He sounds almost normal now. And John suddenly hates that Sherlock isn't even remotely bothered by what just happened. Almost happened.  Almost isn't enough for Sherlock, though. You'd have to really kill him to get his attention.  
  
That's not funny either.  
  
 _I need to get out of here._  
  
And not just right now. John - needs to get _out of here_. He's not safe to be around, he woke up just now on the verge of crushing his best friend's windpipe and Sherlock is too fucked-up-oversmart-stupid to have the sense to be scared of that.  
  
 _I have to leave._  
  
He can't stay here anymore.

  
  
***

  
John gets up from the sofa and moves in a purposeful way towards where his coat hangs and Sherlock realises he must intervene. _Now_.  
  
He'll leave. He thinks he has to.  
  
He must not.  
  
"John." Sherlock leaves the finally-interesting Liebig condenser behind without another thought and moves towards John with fast loping strides to place himself between his flatmate and the door. John looks startled, annoyed, one arm in his coat and one out as Sherlock grips him by the shoulders.  
  
"What the hell? Get off, I'm - " _Going out_ is what John is about to say.  
  
"No."  
  
"Sherlock." Anger is leaching through from below the surface of fear and guilt on John's face. "Let _go_. I'm trying to put my coat on."  
  
"You're trying to leave. Don't. It's a mistake."  
  
"You - for Christ's sake, let - " John tries to wrench free, but Sherlock won't let go. Finally, panting, John shouts, "What the fuck is wrong with you? I just about killed you!"  
  
"But you didn't. John, I know exactly what happ-"  
  
"I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TOO, I woke up on top of you with my hands on your neck - "  
  
"No, John, listen to me! I know exactly why that happened and why it won't happen again. You woke up the first time to a _sensation of surveillance_. I _stared_ you awake, you said. Then when I went out, you moved. Couldn't get back to sleep in the chair? You were unsettled. And you never sleep on the sofa. Unfamiliar placement. Are you following what I'm saying? Then I was gone long enough for you to enter REM sleep, and when I returned I brought in food... Indian food's not so different from Afghan, is it. Many ingredients in common... similar smells. And then I tried to shake you awake. It was just one thing too many. I won't let that happen again."  
  
"I wasn't dreaming about the war! It was - fucking - _Moriarty_ and - " John's anger drains out all at once, leaving him grey. "Jesus. Why didn't you stop me -"  
  
"I did stop you." _Or we wouldn't be having this conversation_ , he has just enough sense not to say.  
  
"No, Sherlock. You were lucky. I woke up... just in time. What's to stop me really killing you next time?" His voice is hoarse and desperate and he is about to twist free and he _must not._  
  
"This." Sherlock lets go of John's shoulders and pulls him close in an embrace.  
  
"Oi!" But there is only the most cursory of token struggles. With one arm pinned in his coat, John does not even have the option of returning the embrace, which really is just as well.  
  
"What are you doing," John moans against Sherlock's chest.  
  
"This is how I stopped you," Sherlock says. _I'll stop you leaving me, too._


	3. Formal synthesis

_What are you doing,_ John thinks, but doesn't say it again. It's obvious _what_ he's doing. He has, he thinks, two choices: pull back, or do nothing. He'll have to pull back eventually. In the meantime: Nothing. He stands there, breathing, eyes tightly closed.  
  
"You can't _do_ that," muffled against Sherlock, tucked in against his shoulder like he's meant to fit there, cup in saucer. "You think I _want_ to wake up to find you _dead!"_  
  
"I will pay attention." That _voice_ against his ear, conducted through his skull, deep vibration. "I promise. I understand that you are dangerous."  
  
This solemn pronouncement sends a shiver all through John, statement of fact like a strange compliment, and that particularly attractive _word_ , and he grasps desperately for a joke, a complaint, a shield. "You - understood the _scorpions_ were dangerous and you still - "  
  
"John."  
  
His own name, sounding like that, _thrumming_ , it's not... it's not something he's allowed to enjoy this much. Nor the extraordinary sensation of Sherlock's face resting against the top of his head.  
  
He's not _allowed_ to stand here drinking this in and enjoying it.  
  
"Right, all right," he makes himself say at last. "You can let go now."  
  
Sherlock huffs his _you're so stupid_ sigh and finally lets go. As he does so he deftly relieves John of his coat and sneaks it back up onto its peg.  
  
John staggers a little and rubs his hand over his face. Then he looks over at the bags from the Indian place and his stomach growls on cue.  
  
Curry.  
  
 _Good_ curry.  
  
He sits in his chair, not looking at the sofa, nearly shovelling in food in his suddenly resuscitated hunger, and realises this must be from the restaurant that blacklisted them for delivery last year, to Mrs Hudson's intense annoyance. Sherlock walked all the way down there and ordered and _waited around?_ After what he'd _done?_ The utter fucking cheek, but damn if it isn't _delicious_ , and that was - sort of - weirdly - nice? of Sherlock.  
  
Wasn't it?  
  
***  
Sherlock pretends to be looking into the globe of the condenser but he is covertly watching John. This should be perfectly safe while John is awake.  
  
John is finally eating and his colour is already improving. His table manners, well, he is not at table: Sherlock is occupying too much of that with his glass equipment and the remainder of the food. Sherlock ordered too much, but that had been deliberate. Mrs Hudson will want some in return for allowing them to keep the leftovers in her fridge. Hence, the lamb korma.  
  
Sherlock cannot help but notice that he has been able to solve two out of three John-set problems today by... this new method of putting his arms around John. Stopped him attacking. Stopped him leaving.  
  
Can it stop him... moping? Wandering? Looking elsewhere?  
  
Stop him writing _poetry!_  
  
Inconclusive. But... maybe.  
  
He's just used it twice, though, and a third application will be more effective if John is allowed to forget about it for a little while first.  
  
And so: a week passes, during which a sporadically-interesting case keeps them busy, and John seems reasonably content, and there are no more traumatic, guilt-inducing awakenings, because Sherlock makes sure that there are not. When John sleeps, Sherlock is awake, vigilant, assessing every least variable for its effect on John's dreaming senses. He learns how to watch John by listening, avoiding the temptation to stare by sitting near but facing away, monitoring John's respiration while staring at the wall over steepled hands.  
  
That's when John sleeps in the living room, which is often. When he sleeps upstairs, Sherlock paces back and forth at the foot of the stairs but doesn't dare approach more closely, knowing that stealthy sounds might be a threat to John's dreaming mind.  
  
Then... John meets another woman. R something, Ramona, Roberta? At the library. And the whole stupid cycle begins again when John tries to bring her home, answering the unasked question of how soon and how thoroughly Sherlock can offend her this time, and it turns out that this time it is _quite_ soon and _very_ thoroughly and she's gone just like that, not at all resilient is she, and now John is furious with him.  
  
"You _selfish fuck."_  
  
Not fair! "But she - "  
  
"One more _word_ and I will Knock. You. Down."  
  
John's deep-blue eyes on him are so hard they hurt. Sherlock flinches and wonders, Is this a good time for...?  
  
No it isn't. Even Sherlock can see it isn't. You don't need social skills to know that fire is hot, that water is wet, or that angry John should not be hugged.  
  
He can't bring himself to say he's sorry, since he is _not_ sorry, the thought of John touching her made Sherlock especially savage on the topic of her shortcomings, and that had been to her face. Now she's gone already, and he'd had _more_ on that topic, but in the face of John's anger the list stutters on his tongue and fades down to a single item: _She's not me._  
  
"This can't keep happening," says John.  
  
"I agree," Sherlock says, coldly.  
  
John does not knock him down, so apparently he didn't mean that.


	4. Catalysis

Weeks on. Sleeping again. This time John falls asleep while Sherlock is playing his violin so there's no need to stop playing now. Sitting up in the chair again, relatively safe. Sherlock glances at him from time to time, has to remind himself once to stop staring.   
  
At some point sentiment has worked on Sherlock's aesthetic sense. John was not always beautiful. Sherlock didn't see him that way, before. He'd been an amalgam of data like everyone else. But now when he sees him sleeping...   
  
Sherlock thinks about pets again, and cats, imagining what sort of cat _he'd_ have been had he been a cat, a sleek smart purebred Abyssinian crawling into John's lap as though he owned it. _I would be warm and purring and you would like that and you would touch me._   
  
This is stupid and sentimental and possibly somewhat sexual. He is having possibly somewhat sexual thoughts about John. He ought to delete them.  
  
He really ought to delete them _right now_.   
  
Sherlock puts the violin and bow down and lies down on the sofa. He listens to John breathing until he, too, falls asleep.   
  
Boring dream. Undeleted detritus from childhood. Things they never let him explain. Blood and cake and broken glass. The track of dreaming whisks him on, he can never dream about what he wants to dream about.   
  
He is standing in the living room staring down at John, and though he knows he's not supposed to do that, when he turns toward the sofa he is still lying there, eyes closed. _Transport. Separate from self._   
  
Snapshot: filed away, to be considered later before probable deletion. Visual data that he cannot have seen with his eyes, a dream thing, a self image. He routinely checks himself out in mirrors and shop windows after all, and his eyes are always open then. That light burning silver in the middle of his forehead is definitely not usually there, though.  
  
He turns back to gaze like a cat at his beautiful John and after a moment John speaks to him with his eyes closed. He says: 'You're doing it again.'  
  
 _What?_ When he tries to speak nothing audible happens, because transport didn't open its mouth. The word just hangs there in the air.   
  
'You think it's up to me? You think I'd ever dare? You'll just end up waiting forever.'  
  
 _But I was prepared to wait forever._  
  
'You _selfish fuck.'_  
  
The words are like a slap, he flinches back. Not-fair words, yet terribly true.   
  
It's selfish, he's selfish, he can't _help_ it.   
  
_I am NOT sorry_.  
  
"Well, I thought this would happen eventually," says John, from above him, and Sherlock is disorientated as he turns toward the sofa but - he's - already _on_ it, looking up as John puts a blanket over him. "I don't think you've slept in a week."  
  
John _could_ make a remark about Sherlock sleeping in _public_ , but he doesn't. And the blanket on him is the good soft one from Sherlock's own bed.   
  
"You," Sherlock mumbles, just audibly, "are nicer to me than I deserve."  
  
John laughs.   
  
"It's true."  
  
"Yeah, I know. That's why I laughed."  
  
"I'm going to find a way to be nice to you."  
  
John sighs, but there's still a ghost of laughter in it. " _Sherlock_. Go to sleep."  
  
Sherlock closes his eyes and there is the lightest touch to the top of his head. He turns on his side and curls up in the soft blanket and if he dreams about anything else he doesn't remember it, but he falls asleep thinking about warm purring cats.


	5. Solvation

"You're staring," John says, in the same sort of way he'd say, 'It's raining.'  
  
It's true. Sherlock has been staring at him since breakfast. And now the sun is going down, or it would be if it weren't nothing but rain rain rain for days on end.  
  
"Problem? You aren't sleeping. It's only a problem when you're sleeping."  
  
"Well you've been at it all day."  
  
"Well a _cat_ may look at a _king_."  
  
John snorts, turning away from the lantern gaze - then stops short, turns back, his face warring between smile and frown.  
  
"Wait a minute. Am I actually the _king_ in this scenario then? _You're_ the cat?"  
  
And Sherlock... turns red.  
  
Because John has never seen such a simple thing happen to Sherlock's face before, it is confusing. "Are you all right?"  
  
" _Fine_ ," and it's only when Sherlock turns his face away that John realises, He's embarrassed.  
  
But why?  
  
 _What is going on in that brain now? Why is he staring at me? Why is he embarrassed?_  
  
 _If it were anybody else, it would just be so obv -_  
  
Er -  
  
Oh.  
  
 _-ious._  
  
 _Oh._  
  
 _No. ...No **way**. No way on earth, this is Sherlock, for God's sake, this is **me** , he doesn't, he wouldn't, and anyway..._  
  
John waits for the instinctive recoil of Not Gay and is puzzled by how very weak and flabby that recoil has become. But it doesn't even matter anyway. It is a misunderstanding. Of course it is. It is John, _misunderstanding_.  
  
It is sort of nice to be the king, though. Even if just for a moment.  
  
All this passes through John's mind during a few blinks of his widened eye.  
  
Sherlock sneaks a look back at John over his shoulder and John feels a helpless surging and sliding in the world, like the earthquakes in Afghanistan. A fundamental thing you can do nothing about, the bones of the world shifting under your insect-small feet. You can only hang on. What else?  
  
It is not John misunderstanding, it is John taking a very long time to understand.  
  
"Oh," he says, aloud this time. "Okay," reflexively, _okay_ as in _all right, I understand things now_ , but Sherlock brightens as though for a serial killer.  
  
" _Okay...?_ " with the kind of face that's meant to be worn by someone who has just said, _Can we open presents now?_  
  
Earthquake again in the bones of John's world. Aftershock. Sherlock turns back towards him and steps closer at the same time and so John only just has time to start panicking before Sherlock's got his arms around him again and John realises it's just another hug and that is sort of okay. It's happened before, so it's just slightly familiar (though confusing, exciting and scary also) and John is able to relax into it, a little.  
  
"This is what you want?"  
  
"Yes please."  
  
 _Please_. Would wonders actually ever cease?  
  
"Can we sit down at least?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Sherlock doesn't seem willing to let him go even to walk a few steps to the sofa, pulling John along with him as he walks backwards.  
  
 _How and when did I agree to this...?_ John wonders dazedly on the sofa, as Sherlock clamps on to John's torso and wedges his head under John's chin. His hands rest naturally on Sherlock's back and shoulder but he is frozen with uncertainty until Sherlock grumbles, (his voice vibrating John's chest as though John were the one speaking) "A _king_ might also possibly _pet_ a cat. If he weren't too _busy_."  
  
John snorts with laughter and lets his hands unfreeze. Yes, a king can pet a cat. A smallish king, and a perfectly enormous cat, but still. One hand rubs Sherlock's back and the other - diffidently at first, then with more confidence - strokes his hair. Sherlock sighs under his touch.  
  
That is nice. So nice -  
  
Oh fuck.  
  
He squirms to get free, but Sherlock says impatiently, "If you're trying to prevent me from noticing the erection - "  
  
"THANK YOU, let me up now - "  
  
"For God's sake John who _cares_ \- "  
  
" _I_ care - "  
  
"Yes," Sherlock has somehow got entirely on top of John now, and he really is sort of purring as he says, " _you_ care, you _like_ me, that's the point, don't stop petting me. I want to be _touched_. I want _you_ to touch me."  
  
Brain shutting down at these words, that voice. Brain melting into soup at the heat and weight of Sherlock's body on top of him.  
  
"Christ," he gasps. "Sherlock. For fuck's sake. Is this the way you found to be... Nice to me?"  
  
"I'm getting there," says Sherlock. "Pet me now or I'll bite you."  
  
He ought to have said ' _and_ '.  
  
Sherlock has bitten him at least three times by the time his mouth lands on John's and John is squirming because he can feel it, Sherlock grinding against him and every bit as hard... Even now this is shocking, this is physically _shocking_ to John, this proof of Sherlock... _excited_. It seems scarcely possible to imagine Sherlock allowing that much blood to spend that much time that far away from his brain. For anything.  
  
This bruising, clumsy kiss now, it ought to be an eye opener, a deal breaker, it ought to put an end to this whole mad business but it isn't and it doesn't.  
  
 _Gay, this is Gay, we're Being Gay and Doing Gay Things,_ John tells himself, trying to force himself to flinch reflexively, like trying to stick a finger down one's throat.  
  
Why is it not working? His hands are on Sherlock's hips. They are throbbing together, _touching_ , even though through layers of clothes, and his hips are rocking up to grind against Sherlock as Sherlock rocks against him. _God. That's - We're - Being - Doing -_  
  
"Stop _thinking_ , it's annoying."  
  
John stares up into the beautiful mad cat eyes of his beautiful mad cat friend, at his mouth panting and wet from their kissing, and knows he's lost.  
  
He stops thinking.  
  
***  
At last John has given up his fitful worrying and oh, now, this is surprising, John is _surprising_.  
  
Which is exactly why he's the only person Sherlock wants to touch him.  
  
They are going to need to have a talk later about buttons, though. John should really be civilised enough to actually _work_ buttons, even in a hurry. This is just wanton destruction of a really good shirt.  
  
The trousers, perhaps, can be saved.  
  
...No, perhaps not.  
  
If John's going to turn into that Hulk person he could at least have the decency to just destroy his _own_ clothes. And he's not even trying to _remove_ them exactly, just - invade them. Destructively.  
  
And all the while John's eyes are dark and glittering and excitingly hot on Sherlock's body and face and body again.  
  
 _I bit him and told him to stop thinking. Is that all it takes? Wish I'd thought of it ages ago._  
  
He couldn't have, of course, and it wouldn't have worked ages ago, either. But it's a good line and he'll tease John with it at the most opportune possible moment.  
  
There's a lot of talk, apparently, about Sherlock's being a virgin, but he's _not_. He received a blowjob once. And ejaculated, so it was definitely a complete sex act.  
  
"Stop. Thinking," says John in a stern sort of voice that is the best thing, ever.  
  
"Buttons," says Sherlock, and yanks John's trousers open.  
  
He doesn't really stop thinking, of course. He _can't_ , not even for John. But he loves the way John told him to and he really does try. Thinking doesn't stop under the influence of most drugs, either, but it can change speed, alter trajectory. John is like a drug.  
  
Trying to touch. Fabric barriers. " _Pants_ ," he whines. John obliges him by yanking them down, clever John, helpful John.  
  
The only other thing Sherlock has done, sexually, is masturbate; that he knows how to do. In the shower, usually, because it is messy, and because it is pleasant to be naked. It is a basic ritual of maintenance like brushing teeth, and is paid as much attention.  
  
His hand, therefore, understands what to do with John's cock, mirror image though it is. He grips it, then slides up, and John makes _such_ a sound at that, and there is slick moisture on Sherlock's fingertips. A literal, physical thrill passes over Sherlock from his hand to his head to the tips of his toes. John's penis feels hotter than body temperature and harder than osmium.  
  
"This is me being nice," Sherlock says but even to his own ears his voice sounds odd, strained.  
  
"Get closer."  
  
Sherlock hesitates, not sure what John wants, and John pulls him forward by the hip. They are touching, pressed together like before. But no more barriers. Hot flesh throbbing together. Rubbing and sliding. And Sherlock's hand still on John. John reaches between them too and he's touching Sherlock - and himself - both together, their cocks and their hands folded together, hot and sliding, forward and back.  
  
Panting. Faster.  
  
"John," he blurts out, uncertainty wavering in his voice now, and John nods and laughs a little, eyes tight shut as though in pain. Sherlock can stare now. His eyebrows. His mouth. The sound of his ragged breath. Sweaty, blushing, dangerous John.  
  
John opens his eyes wide, suddenly. His teeth are bared. "Gonna _come_ ," he growls, " _Kiss me_."  
  
Sherlock leans down to devour his mouth just as he feels John starting to come. John's cock seems to buck against his and against his hand and the spurts of semen feel fire-hot and it's, it's everywhere -  
  
John bites Sherlock's lower lip. "You too. Do it _now_."  
  
"I," he starts to try to say, and that's that. He gasps and then his voice deserts him completely. Pleasure in a radiant burst spasms through him and from him over and over and his cum is all over them and John's too and John's murmured praise in his ear " _yes amazing yes_ " makes him spasm again, helplessly.  
  
He puts his head down beside John's, trembling all over, and closes his eyes and sighs and maybe, for just one moment, one blissful heartbeat before falling asleep, Sherlock does stop thinking.  
  
***  
He's sleeping again.  
  
John looks down at Sherlock as he lies passed out on the sofa. John bullied him awake before to get them out of the remnants of their clothes and to clean up, and Sherlock, bleary and yawning, had complied without protest, then gathered his blanket around him in a cocoon and stretched out here.  
  
John feels as though _he_ is the cat looking at the king, now. That angelic face. Dark curls. Long dark lashes against his pale cheeks. And his _mouth_.  
  
 _You figured me out. Of course you did. You knew I wanted to, but I'd never dare start it, never. So you did. 'I want to be touched, I want you to touch me.' I could have been the one to say that. Jesus, it's true enough. You said it for me, said it for us both._  
  
Heat floods his face as he thinks about what they did here on the sofa, but he can't seem to find any regret... maybe a little embarrassment. But most of the heat in John's face is remembered pleasure and the sweet possibility of more. He's smiling a little at the memory of Sherlock crying out his name in _that voice_ , making a simple, short, pedestrian name into a sex-word of longing and surrender, when Sherlock opens his eyes.  
  
Sherlock stares up at him and John imagines him remembering, processing, sorting through events with mechanical speed. Judging, too, maybe? Was this an experiment, now concluded?  
  
"Did I stare you awake?" John asks, trying for a light tone while his heart is pounding.  
  
"Yes," and Sherlock smiles as though presents have been opened and joy of joys there is a pony. ...Or a cat. "It really does work. Like you said. Even while I was sleeping, I could feel you looking at me."  
  
Rueful, embarrassed, John ducks his head. "Sorry, I'll stop."  
  
"Oh no," and Sherlock sits up, half emerging from his blanket like Botticelli's Venus. His eyes are fixed on John's, and his face is flushed. Gorgeous. "It's... fine."  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> I had cold after cold while working on this. I seem to be an amusement park for rhinovirus.
> 
> Thank you to Rosebelle_believes for kindly correcting my use of the word 'block' when I should have said 'street'. :)

**Author's Note:**

> I previously tagged this story with the "cat!Sherlock" tag, but I have removed it. It's only metaphorical 'catlock', and was kind of misleading to the reader.


End file.
